One whooped puppy

We enjoyed our visit with my folks and a delicious home-made lunch this afternoon. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Earlier I mentioned that I wasn't sure what the day held for us beyond their visit. We had hoped to visit the garden after James finished the chemo. Someone else, however, had other plans.

Once James' methotrexate was completed, we needed to use his port to draw blood for labs to determine the level of methotrexate in his blood. The port flushed just fine. There was some trouble drawing back enough blood to get a clean specimen and during the effort of positioning James, the port became blocked. Now nothing will go in or come out.

We had held his IV from yesterday, but it failed and James endured more sticks to try to get another IV started. Andy, the flight medic, who incidentally commutes from Toccoa, GA, tried three times to no avail for an IV, though he was able to get enough blood for the lab tests. The nurses tried to reaccess his port, but it leaked. This is essentially what happened the last time. Others are hopeful that tomorrow things will be different and they will try again to reaccess the port. While I do not share their optimism. I sure hope they are right and I am wrong--for James' sake.

In the meantime, flushing James with bicarbonate to quickly lower his methotrexate levels is critical. The nurse practitioner has worked out a plan for James to get what he needs and for the nurse and the doctor on call to run regular lab tests through the night to be sure everything is in line, since there is certainly no existing protocol for flushing a chemo patient this way.

The plan makes sense to me. But please play for wisdom in the implementation so that James will remain well-hydrated, that his pH levels would be correct and manageable and that he would fully flush the methotrexate within the first 24 hours (by 3:15 tomorrow afternoon).

After all the excitement, James fell sound asleep (see photo above) and took a good, long nap. He is now sitting comfortably with Katie in the chair (the nurse changed out his bedding), watching Pride and Prejudice (the A&E version).

I'm off to warm up supper, but hope to be able to post some more photos later. Thanks for checking up on us.

Love, Stephanie